Urban Warfare

U.S. defense officials predicted Wednesday that they would minimize civilian casualties if there is a war with Iraq, despite Pentagon plans to unleash an intense bombing campaign, the presence of human shields in Baghdad and the prospect of urban warfare. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Army Gen. Tommy Franks, head of the U.S.

Among the service members who have died since the conflict began in March 2003, the stories of several have lingered in the minds of Times reporters and photographers, even if they weren't necessarily close to them. -- In the first days of the Marine offensive on Fallouja in November 2004, Lance Cpl. George J. Payton of the 3-5 Marines wondered why his unit wasn't getting any action.

Sit back, and watch America wither. The flame of liberty flickers today because too many Americans have withdrawn from active citizenship and too many ignore the wretched poverty and violence of the growing underclass. Without leaders who will inspire solutions to the problems of the underclass, its seething hatreds could spark widespread urban warfare, creating "Beirut in Berkeley" as one speaker put it.

Michael Bay stood with his hand on his hip and inspected the surface of the moon — the gray dunes and silent ridgelines spread out before him, stretching off into the dark distance. He turned to a visitor and grinned. "C'mon, that's pretty great, right?" It was just another day on the Playa Vista set of "Transformers: Dark of the Moon," and the fast-moving filmmaker was passing by the lunar surface set that filled one hangar-sized soundstage on his way to a neighboring set where returning star Shia LaBeouf and franchise newcomer John Malkovich were waiting for their camera call.

Casualties declined among El Salvador's armed forces in the 12 months ending June 30 despite an increase in military offensives against leftist guerrillas, the country's Defense Minister said Tuesday. It was the second year in a row that the total number of dead, wounded and missing officially fell in the five-year-old civil war. The claims were made in the annual report of Gen. Carlos Vides Casanova to El Salvador's National Assembly.

Ariel Sharon has been installed as Israel's prime minister, together with an oversize multi-party Cabinet that many expect to behave more like a large, dysfunctional family than a smooth-running government. Its members range from dovish Foreign Minister Shimon Peres on the left to Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi--who advocates expelling all Palestinians from the West Bank--on the lunatic right. Sharon calls it a national unity government.

Diplomatic Front: Iraqi President Saddam Hussein followed up a call for dialogue by announcing he will release nine Frenchmen who had been held as "foreign guests." President Bush, meanwhile, told the U.N. General Assembly that all nations hope military force will not be required to drive Iraq from Kuwait. But he won applause by vowing anew that the annexation of Kuwait "will not stand." At a U.N.

The U.S. Marine Corps conceded defeat Friday in its battle to stage a large-scale experimental military exercise in the Presidio, the onetime Army fort that is now a national park. The Marines' War Fighting Laboratory had planned to land 700 troops on the beach March 15 near the Golden Gate Bridge for four days of exercises meant to test fighting skills and state-of-the-art equipment for urban warfare in the 21st century.

Scalding steam spewed from a ruptured boiler pipe on the helicopter carrier Iwo Jima in the Persian Gulf today, killing eight sailors and critically injuring two others. That accident and the death of a Marine when his jeep overturned in Saudi Arabia boosted the number of U.S. military deaths to 41 during the nearly three-month-old Operation Desert Shield without a shot being fired.